Joe Biden's plan for Iraq
Joe Biden writes a piece today in the Washington Post - The Real Surge Story - that demonstrates both that he is a brilliant mind with many good ideas for Iraq - his commitment to a decentralized, federal political system in Iraq is a very good principle to operate from - and utterly clueless about how to separate a good idea from his own ego, which demands that such a plan somehow be divorced and, indeed, undermine a security effort which is the only one that would make any political resolution to the fighting in Iraq - his or anyone else's - possible.
Joe is at his best when he is arguing that America should "help Iraq make the transition to a decentralized, federal system, as called for in its constitution, where each major group has local control over the fabric of its daily life, including security, education, religion and marriage."
That part he is right about. It's a good plan. It respects important democratic principles like decentralization and federalism that are both liberal in their commitments and clearly necessary when you have groups looking to violently impose upon one another and likewise fear the same.
What Joe is clueless about, right now, is that waving around that Constitution and saying, "It says it right here. It's in the Constitution. It's the law. You got to do it" is no fuckin' plan for bringing security to Iraq. It's mindlessly telling people what they should do without creating a relatively secure space for them to do the real political negotiating that will be necessary to make a political resolution like Joe's - or whatever political resolution the Iraqi people and their representatives decide on, frankly, though Joe is right that they should respect this principle and work to bring it into being - possible.
Joe is fighting the very thing that would make such a plan a possibility. Largely because he wants to be President, and he thinks that such a plan will not see the light of day until he becomes President. But the funny thing is that Joe's Presidential ambitions will not see the light of day until he faces up to the real responsibility to provide security, here, that is an unavoidable prerequisite to his plan or any plan getting any real playtime on the political field. You don't have adequate security, you don't have a political resolution of any kind. Period. There is no way around this. And bringing the troops home is no fuckin' plan for creating that kind of security.
Whether Joe wants to face it or not, the truth is that conservatives like Frederick Kagan are right about this one. You cannot wish political negotiations into place. They either have real prerequisites for enactment in place - and adequate security to have a political negotiation is a pretty bare essentials basic prerequisite for a political settlement - or they do not. Joe apparently believes that the tooth fairy brings security to a war-torn region. What John McCain understands is that it is a substantial, credible, troop presence authorized by a governing authority. Iraqi troops could be authorized, but lack substantial enough credible numbers of people prepared to handle that job. So American military forces are the only other alternative, right now, until Iraqi troops can handle that job.
Hence, my response to Joe's editorial. Enjoy.
"As much as you would love to fantasize that appeals to the Iraqi Consitution will somehow end the fighting, how in the world, Joe, were you imagining that Iraqis would search out a political resolution - yours is good one, but something tells me that Iraqis will need to ultimately decide their own fate on this one, despite what I think is a lot of wisdom in your plan - without some kind of security on the ground for those negotitating a political settlement?
Were you proposing that they should stand on soap-boxes and yell at insurgents, "But the Constitution says we should have a decentralized, federal system."
Nonsense. Obviously security must be established for those parties to negotiate a political settlement that can line up with that Constitutonal principle or change that principle in whatever way their Constitution allows. There is no resolution to this war waving a piece of paper around.
There is either real security on the ground that allows for a real political negotiation or resolution or that Constitution remains paper with no power. Either people respect this Iraqi constititutional principal and so many other important democratic principles - enshrined in their constitution or not - or they don't. But a bare minimum requirement for respect for abstract political principles is a relatively secure space in which principles can be discussed, negotiated, applied, learned from, and otherwise become real in the lives of Iraqi people and their representatives and not just an abstraction voiced by an American Senator thousands of miles away.
The truth is that a military component is needed for a political resolution of this mess whether Democrats like that or not or whether it makes them look like they have all the answers or not.
John McCain understands that. And if you can't get that straight, Joe, you have no chance in hell of becoming President of this country or any other country for that matter."
Joe's website for his Presidential candidacy - planforiraq.com - is more specific in his proposals. On that website, he concludes his very well thought out proposals with this argument:
"That leaves federalism as Iraq's best possible future. But unless we help make it work for all Iraqis, it won't stop the violence. We should start with a major diplomatic offensive to convince the major powers and Iraq's neighbors that a federal Iraq is the best possible outcome for them, too. Then, together, we should convene a Dayton-like conference to move all the Iraqi parties from civil war to the negotiating table. Through a combination of pressure and reassurance, we would persuade the Sunnis to accept federalism and press the Shiites and Kurds to give the Sunnis a bigger piece of the pie.
The course we're on leads to a terrible civil war and possibly a regional war. This plan is designed to head that off. It offers the possibility - not the guarantee - of producing a soft landing for Iraq. I believe it is the best way to bring our troops home, protect our fundamental security interests, and preserve Iraq as a unified country.
The question I have for those who reject this plan is simple: what is your alternative?"
The alternative that Joe is clearly not taking seriously and is the reason why Democrats have so much less clue about how to handle Iraq than they perpetually give themselves too much credit for is to avoid the fundamental mistake that was made over the course of this war: to make decisions for Iraqis versus including them in decisions like revolting against their dictator and, at this particular political moment, letting them decide their own political fate.
Iraqis are not going to adopt a political resolution that Americans or even the Arab world imposes upon them or pressures them to adopt. And we are arrogant in the extreme to think that either they should or they will. Would Americans really have adopted a Constitution that the British pressured us to adopt? Of course not. We would think they were the most arrogant, power-hungry fools in the world to believe such nonsense. And we would be right. And Iraqis will, pretty soon, just stop listening altogether to Americans trying to impose such nonsense.
What is Joe thinking? That Iraqis will just hop up on the America-pressures-for-progress bandwagon just like Iran and North Korea? Is he fuckin' blind? Iran and North Korea are not bending to our will, you fuckin' nimrods. They're fighting us all the way. Whenever progress looks to be in sight, Americans go and fuck it up by applying some kind of military or economic or political pressure that undermines all that diplomacy.
What Iraqis need, right now, is our help and for us to sit the fuck down and stop trying to run the goddamn show all the fuckin' time. They've asked for our help to create a workable security for them to find a political resolution to their situation. And we need to respect that wish and sit our happy asses down and learn when your pressure or advice is not welcome, thank you very fuckin' much. Maybe they enact the principles of decentralization and federalism enshrined in their Constitution. I agree with Joe that this would be a very good idea. But I'm not the fuckin' Iraqis. And neither is Joe. And whether Joe or Democrats or Republicans or anyone fuckin' likes it or not, Iraqis will decide their own fate, thank you very fuckin' much, whether Americans insist on trying to call all the shots themselves or not.
Maliki has got to have the patience of a fuckin' saint to put up with this kind of bullshit. And he needs the Americans' help, is the truth. Thank god Joe Biden is just a fuckin' Senator and not the President making military decisions here. I hope Joe Biden gets his arrogant little ass beat in this election and maybe, just maybe, goes home to his wife with his little fuckin' tail between his legs and says, "Maybe I don't know it all, Jill. Maybe the Iraqis, like the American people, may just be able to live much of their own lives without my making all the decisions for them. Maybe they can and have to - whether I fuckin' like it or not - find a resolution to their own problems, regardless of my input. Maybe there are limits to my intellect and my power." Maybe, Joe. Just maybe.
When Joe Biden says that the security efforts in Iraq are "doomed," he is not someone to be taken seriously as Presidential material to lead such efforts. He is automatically disqualified from that, as far as I'm concerned, until he can more humbly think through how exactly he is going to provide for the very security that he is undermining, right now, with his comments.
Joe Biden gets zero support from me until he gets serious about the current security efforts. If he can't, then he is more than welcome to make another failed bid to win the Presidency and to be humbled in front of millions of Americans. Because that is exactly what he needs right now.
Love,
Ben
